18 karma · joined September 30, 2019
Measuring distances, I suppose there could be numerous ways, like measuring the gravity or electric pull (not sure what it is called in English). I think only Quantum theory says we can not measure to arbitrary precision, or at least if we do, there are other issue. Still, that would be another argument than simply pointing at the number of atoms.
Another argument would perhaps be the energy required to do the computation. Maybe that relates more directly to the number of atoms in the universe, via Einstein's equation?
I guess it is (for me) about practical approaches and solutions vs theoretical musings.
Also in general people are not all that bad. Even most bad people are just misguided, not inherently bad.
So I would guess most 3 car garages are built in the countryside, where there is lots of space for building.
The two numbers point to completely separate issues.
If singles would be willing to move to the countryside, perhaps they wouldn't have a problem to find accommodation. (A job could be a different matter).
They are good suggestions, but I would put them in another category than CoCs.
If that is the case, it seems unwarranted to present it as an example of failure. Poor people were attracted by the success, and accommodating them was not seamless. But how could it be - no system can be prepared for that.
You have things like fairphone where you can exchange and upgrade parts. In general, the magic of capitalism is that if people want something, somebody will eventually make it.
I also wonder how much of companies trying to prevent repairs is actually BECAUSE of regulations. Like they could be liable if something goes wrong. What if somebody tries to repair a phone, does it wrong, and the battery explodes. Who would be liable?
Your final point, with you being able to do a lot of repairs: you are not normal in that respect. Most people could not do that.
And even the hourly rate of most people would probably make it ineffective for them to do it, even if they could.
Since it is inefficient, I question the assumption that repairs are automatically good for the environment. Maybe buying a newer, more energy efficient machine every couple of years is better in some cases, especially if the old machine is recycled properly.
I would be much more in favor of regulations with respect to recycling. This "repairing is better" is mostly ideology and virtue signalling.
The problem here is that people don't really want these devices. Maybe they think they want them, but in reality the effort to have them repaired would be too much to them. As others have pointed out, wages are the real issue, not cost of spare parts.
Experts are not better than business leaders at running businesses.
As usually, when politicians think they can do business better than the businesses themselves, this will probably be a net waste.
Isn't even the famous moth that changed color in the early days of the industrial evolution an example? I think it carries both genes (for black and white expression), and they get triggered depending on the environment during development. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution
I could be wrong about the moth, but certainly, genes that are only expressed depending on environment are common knowledge.